The Fun Girls!

Okay, having spent more time than usual back home, apparently I have my Mayberry-influenced past on the brain. Which is how I found this. Yes, the Fun Girls have their very own Wikipedia entry! I'm so proud.

You see, I am a Fun Girl veteran.

If you know me, you know that I grew up in Pilot Mountain and spent every waking moment not in school, church or at home at the Andy Griffith Playhouse in Mount Airy. At some point - I think it was my junior year in high school, but, honestly, they kind of all run together - I was drafted into the parade that took place every year at Mayberry Days (last weekend of September - mark your calendars!). Along with two of my fellow theatre-geek friends, I was to be a costumed character. I will protect their privacy, because they voluntarily went out in public dressed as a chicken and a gorilla, but I will tell you that their names rhyme with Floey Farion and Fris Foltz, respectively. I was a giant bunny. And if you're reading this wondering what a chicken, a gorilla and a bunny could possibly have to do with "The Andy Griffith Show" - just don't.

It was a lot of fun, actually. There's something liberating about being in one of those mascot-like costumes, where nobody knows who you are. It's hot, and you have no peripheral vision... but it's still something I recommend everybody try at least once.

I was the bunny again the next year, though this time I got to ride in a convertible with a six-year-old beauty queen who was probably terrified of me. But this seven-foot-tall bunny was done boogy-ing up Main Street.

I think it was the year of Convertible Bunny that I met the Fun Girls. I'm standing in the parking lot of the bank/staging area in my bunny suit when I see two women that I know from the theatre, and they're in what I now think of as Joan Holloway clothes, while I am wearing - I don't know if I mentioned this - a bunny suit, and so I walk up and ask (through my bunny head) who they're supposed to be.

"We're the Fun Girls from Mt. Pilot," they say. I have to say, I felt a little robbed by that. Because, ahem, I AM a fun girl, and I am also from Mt. Pilot (or at least its real-world inspiration), and this is the first I've heard of these characters as an alternative option to a giant bunny. This is what I get for never actually watching The Show.

Flash-foward a few years, when I'm home from college. The arts council calls to ask if I'd like to volunteer for Mayberry Days again. For the very first time in my theatre-related life, I outright demand a role: If I am to participate in the parade, I WILL be a Fun Girl. No problem! My friend Angela is game, and, true to tell, she is far more prepared than me. She knows that the Fun Girls have names, for instance, which was news to me, because I never watched The Show.

One more year, and I'm back in Fun Girl mode. One issue: I'm the lone Fun Girl this year unless I can recruit a partner. I don;t know why I asked, or why she agreed, but my pre-teen sister Elizabeth agreed to do it with me. The problem is that, without Angela (who knew her Daphne from her Skippy), we're just two gals with cute outfits in a convertible, with 70-year-old-men running up on the parade route wanting pictures with us.

I'd grown up knowing that some people are really into "The Andy Griffith Show." As I learned that day, some people are really, REALLY into "The Andy Griffith Show." Like, enough to remember dialogue and traits of characters that appeared three times in nine seasons of a sitcom that had been off the air for decades. And, you know what? I can't totally blame them. If I ever go to a "Central Perk" festival 20 years from now and meet some talent who doesn't know the words to "Smelly Cat," I will be disappointed.

So, mea culpa for my lack of proper knowledge of the Fun Girls. (In my defense, we didn't have Google or Wikipedia back then.) I was the worst Fun Girl in the history of Mayberry Days, and I probably traumatized my baby sister for life, not to mention the random 70-year-old men wondering why Daphne doesn't know to say "Hello, Doll," and why both of them aren't blonde.

And somewhere, someone has pictures.